The Futures Game Was Bright With Syndergaard, Montero and Nimmo On Hand

Well that was fun..

The game’s best young prospects converged on Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, to take part in the Futures Game, where the U.S. Team defeated the World Team by a score of 4-2.

As for the good guys, Noah Syndergaard started for the U.S. Team and allowed one hit in his inning of work, while Rafael Montero started for the World Team and needed just nine pitches to complete his perfect inning of work.

Offensively, Brandon Nimmo came off the bench to replace starting left fielder Joc Pederson and went 0-for-2 at the plate with two men left on base.

All in all, everybody had fun at the ballpark as the game’s future stars put on a great show to kick off the All Star festivities at Citi Field.

Notes From Satish R.

So Teddy Klein and I were at the game yesterday and thoroughly the whole experience, although we only got to see Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero for what felt like a minute. They worked so quickly and efficiently in the their innings that if you blinked, you might have missed it.

First off, Syndergaard is an intimidating presence on the mound, and that’s putting it nicely. The kid is huge. You can read the numbers on his profile all you want — but you have to see him to realize how justified that Thor nickname is. His fastball sat at 96 with what seemed like no effort, and he did throw at least one nasty hook in the inning. Syndergaard struck out a batter with his blazing fastball in the inning too. Montero had absolutely no trouble in his inning, and although he had no strikeouts, a perfect inning in the Futures Game is still nice.

Syndergaard, much like Montero, seemed unphased under the lights of Citi Field — good for us, right?

As mentioned above, Brandon Nimmo came in to play left field later in the game and got two at-bats. The first resulted in a hard-hit ball to shortstop off a left-handed pitcher, but the second was a simple ground out. He looked decent overall in left field.

Outside of our guys, here are a few things I noted down during the game…

• Matt Davidson crushed his home run to practically dead center off Michael Ynoa, who I remain was the wrong Ynoa to add to this staff. Our Ynoa is a better pitcher, in my opinion.
• Austin Hedges, the Padres C prospect, has really quick hands at the plate and I was impressed with that.
• I already noted that I didn’t find myself impressed with Michael Ynoa, and you can add Anthony Ranaudo to that list as well. I won’t write them off as prospects or anything crazy, but they didn’t have good showings out there.
• Also impressing me was Rays southpaw Enny Romero and Rafael De Paula of the Yankees. Romero looks like he might have some control issues at times, or perhaps his breaking pitches are too inconsistent, but his fastball is amazing. De Paula commands his pitches well and has good presence on the mound.
• Teddy and I had a little argument over which Cecchini was the better prospect — but Garin Cecchini had a nice showing in this game.
• Arismendy Alcantara‘s home run was a beauty…switch hitting infielder wearing number 7 brought back some memories.